Me Am Not Wondering About the Way Bizarro Doesn’t Speak

I’ll be the first to admit it: I don’t know everything about comics. I have a pretty good amount of information in this head of mind, but there are those people out there with steel trap minds who know that Wonder Man first appeared in 1964 Avengers #9. If something comes along that they don’t know, they can always turn to the internet. With all these smart people out there, with everything at their fingers, why can’t someone manage to write Bizarro’s language consistently?

Do you remember about a year ago when Bizarro was popping up in every DC comic? I remember reading that some DC writer or editor really wanted show what the character could do and as a result he was everywhere. And every writer seemed to have a different take on Big Purple’s vocal abilities. Jeph Loeb was a big fan of exploiting the backwards talking, even going so far to cook up another backwards talker: The World’s Worst Detective - Batzarro. Take a look at Superman/Batman #21.



Mark Verheiden took Bizarro out for a spin in Superman #221. He kept some of the backwards talking but stuck with the Tarzan-like speak.



He was popping up so many places I started to think of Bizarro as Wolverine in a Marvel book. Let’s not forget his menacing “good-bye” in Infinite Crisis. The gray-skinned villain disappeared until Action Comics #845 when he came back after thirteen months as Lex Luthor’s captive.

I am a big fan of Geoff Johns; I think he is one of the best out there. But I do think he suffers at the hands of Bizarro like every other writer. I don’t care which way you choose to write the speech patterns, but be consistent with it. The comic seems to swing back and forth between simpleton and backwards-talking. Then we have this page (yes, I know I used it in a previous post, that’s what brought this one on):



You have the “good-bye” and then the wham with a school bus. Now is this a, “Good-bye, you’re dead,” wham with a school bus? Or a “good-bye” meaning hello wham with a school kind of like “say hello to my little friend”? See where I can be confused. I actually don’t care which one as long as it becomes common throughout comics. I’m proposing a DC comic writer vote. Will it be backwards speech or Tarzan speech? Cause in the beginning me am not okay. with knowing how to not read Bizarro’s speech. You guys get it?